“BOILED HAM AND PARSNIPS” When Sight & Sound reviewed the film on its release, in 1972, it conceded that Kasimir Kaschomski’s five-hour black-and-white account of a Ukrainian peasant woman’s struggle to prepare the eponymous meal “might not be for everyone,” but we’re long past that. The film, presented in four chapters, titled “Walk to the Market,” “The Haggle,” “The Walk Home Again,” and “The Preparation of the Ham,” culminates in scum-flecked bubbles in the pan, which exert a weirdly hypnotic hold on the viewer. Ulnyano Melnik had never appeared before a camera until “Boiled Ham,” and she never appeared before one again. But you’ll believe every step of the two-hour walk, and every obstinate syllable of the haggle. She’s not in the kitchen scenes much; Kaschomski lets the ham take center stage, a breathtaking piece of cinematic bravery that pays off. Try not to binge! My family and I made this last for two nights. (Five hours and twenty-one minutes. Netflix Ukraine—you can change the settings on your account.)
MACON McCALMAN RETROSPECTIVE You are, I’m guessing, unfamiliar with the work of Macon McCalman, who died in 2005, with a hundred and fifteen movie and television credits to his name. I was unfamiliar with it, too, until I picked a random film on IMDb (“Smokey and the Bandit”) and a random character (Mr. B.), and set out to watch every single McCalman performance I could find. Some of them are hard to come by, certainly, and, if anyone has access to the 1977 TV series “Carter County,” I’m looking for the episode titled, with an ominous inelegance, “By the Light of the Moonlight,” in which McCalman plays Drunk. But he was Goodspeed in an episode of “Wonder Woman,” Dr. Harry Capello in “Hart to Hart,” and Ned Avery in “Barnaby Jones.” Chances are, if you watched TV in the seventies or the eighties, you ignored him—up to now. He had the enviable ability to play different characters in the same series without anyone noticing: he was both Dolph Masterson and Kibbee in “Lou Grant,” Mark Duncan and Wendall Glendale in “Maude” (both episodes filmed in 1977), Dr. Kalsa and George Endicott in “Diff’rent Strokes.” The pandemic gives us a chance to celebrate his work. There was so much of it that you’ll be watching forever, unless you shoot yourself first. (Eighty-one hours, approx. Mostly YouTube, but check any old VHS tapes you have in the garage.)
1997 NATIVITY PLAY, ST. SWITHIN’S SCHOOL You’ve seen “Downton Abbey” three times. You’ve even seen the movie. You’ve watched “Poldark,” “The Forsyte Saga,” “Grantchester,” “Victoria,” “Upstairs, Downstairs,” and everything Jane Austen so much as thought about writing. Where to go for your posh Brit fix? Try this nativity play put on by the exclusive St. Swithin’s primary school, in southwest London, filmed on a shaky but passable camcorder by a proud front-row parent. Harry Smith-Walker plays Joseph with youthful enthusiasm, although he tends to shout his lines, and his reaction to the flatulence of a Wise Man does break the fourth wall momentarily. St. Swithin’s didn’t accept girls until 2002, so Nigel Parker-Lawrence plays Mary, with a rather winning modesty, although, as was true in so many pre-twenty-first-century productions, the part is underwritten, and Mary the woman is obscured by Mary the mother. Politics buffs will be excited to know that Smith-Walker is now a Junior Minister for Work and Pensions in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet. (Twenty-one minutes. YouTube.)
DARLINGTON V. GAINSBOROUGH TRINITY, OCTOBER, 2016 You’ve probably seen every highlights package in every field of sporting endeavor by now, so why not watch full games between teams you’ve never heard of? Darlington, from County Durham, is in the sixth division of English football; Gainsborough Trinity is from Lincolnshire. Their clash a few years back was uploaded to YouTube, where it has been viewed by eighteen hundred people. Prepare for the match by finding out a little bit about the history of the two clubs—Darlington formed in 1883 and turned pro in 1908, and very little has happened to the team since. Gainsborough Trinity, ten years older than Darlington, was originally called Trinity Recreationists. It reached the giddy heights of the English second division in 1896, but it’s been mostly downhill ever since. Jordan Adebayo-Smith, a nineteen-year-old born in California, is on loan to Gainsborough from Lincoln City, so Americans can keep an eye on one of their own. (Two hours and seven minutes, including a blank screen during halftime. YouTube.)
“CATS” Cats was widely derided at the time of its release, in 2019, but, if you have literally seen everything else on every streaming service, then perhaps it’s worth . . . Actually, I hate this job, and I quit. Read “Ulysses” or the Bible. Talk to your family. Try to make a replica of the old Ebbets Field out of used chewing gum. There will be a vaccine soon. ♦
